Hello, my name is Finn, and I'm going to help you understand this book.
Here it is, explained like you are 10:
Du Bois was a Black writer in America who saw his country from a corner most white people never saw. In this book he tells you what he saw. There are essays about his own life, about Africa, about hard work and low pay, about women and children. Between the essays sit poems and short tales. The last tale, about a comet striking New York, will stay with you.
Du Bois wrote this book near the end of the First World War, and published it in 1920. He had already written The Souls of Black Folk. Darkwater is its darker companion. In his postscript he says he has lived in the world but not of it, watching the human drama from a veiled corner, and that this double view is what he has to offer.
The chapters take up the great subjects one by one. He tells his own life story, looks hard at the souls of white folk, and writes about Africa, about work and wealth, about the ruling of men, and about women, whose hard lot he calls a damnation. He writes about children, about beauty and death, and he does not spare war, which his Credo calls murder.
Between the essays stand poems and tales, prayers, hymns and stories, and the book ends with The Comet, a tale in which a comet strikes New York and a Black messenger and a white woman walk through the ruins. Du Bois said he could no longer tell whether he meant the thought for the fancy or the fancy for the thought. That mixture is the book.
W. E. B. Du Bois published Darkwater: Voices from Within the Veil in 1920, writing, as his postscript says, from a veiled corner of the world he knew from inside. Ten chapters of essays, sketches and poems move from his Credo and his own life story to white folk, Africa, work, women, children, beauty and death, and close with a strange tale, The Comet, set in ruined New York.
The front matter dates and places the book. The book was originally published in 1920 by Harcourt, Brace and Company of New York. Du Bois signs his postscript at New York in 1919, and a dedication leaf, headed Ad Ninam and dated May 12, 1896, stands before it. He thanks the Atlantic, the Independent, the Crisis and the Journal of Race Development for pieces reworked here.
The contents show the design. A Credo opens the book, a page of belief in God, in the Negro race, in service, in liberty and in the Prince of Peace. Ten chapters follow, each trailed by a poem or tale: The Shadow of Years, The Souls of White Folk, The Hands of Ethiopia, Of Work and Wealth, The Damnation of Women, The Immortal Child, Of Beauty and Death, and last The Comet, with A Hymn to the Peoples to close.
In the postscript Du Bois explains the mixture. Between the sterner flights of logic, he says, he has set alightings of poetry, tributes to beauty not meant to stand alone, until he no longer knows whether he means the thought for the fancy or the fancy for the thought. Read the book as he built it: argument and song answering each other.
Edition: Edition of 1920. Text: Project Gutenberg ebook 15210.
The first chapter
These are the things of which men think, who live: of their own selves and the dwelling place of their fathers; of their neighbors; of work and service; of rule and reason and women and children; of Beauty and Death and War. To this thinking I have only to add a point of view: I have been in the world, but not of it. I have seen the human drama from a veiled corner, where all the outer tragedy and comedy have reproduced themselves in microcosm within. From this inner torment of souls the human scene without has interpreted itself to me in unusual and even illuminating ways. For this reason, and this alone, I venture to write again on themes on which great souls have already said greater words, in the hope that I may strike here and there a half-tone, newer even if slighter, up from the heart of my problem and the problems of my people.
Between the sterner flights of logic, I have sought to set some little alightings of what may be poetry. They are tributes to Beauty, unworthy to stand alone; yet perversely, in my mind, now at the end, I know not whether I mean the Thought for the Fancy--or the Fancy for the Thought, or why the book trails off to playing, rather than standing strong on unanswering fact. But this is alway--is it not?--the Riddle of Life.
Many of my words appear here transformed from other publications and I thank the Atlantic, the Independent, the Crisis, and the Journal of Race Development for letting me use them again.
W.E. BURGHARDT DU BOIS. New York, 1919.
Contents
CHAPTER PAGE
POSTSCRIPT ix Credo 1
I. THE SHADOW OF YEARS 3 A Litany at Atlanta 14
II. THE SOULS OF WHITE FOLK 17 The Riddle of the Sphinx 30
III. THE HANDS OF ETHIOPIA 32 The Princess of the Hither Isles 43
IV. OF WORK AND WEALTH 47 The Second Coming 60
V. "THE SERVANT IN THE HOUSE" 63 Jesus Christ in Texas 70
VI. OF THE RULING OF MEN 78 The Call 93
VII. THE DAMNATION OF WOMEN 95 Children of the Moon 109
VIII. THE IMMORTAL CHILD 114 Almighty Death 128
IX. OF BEAUTY AND DEATH 130 The Prayers of God 145
X. THE COMET 149 A Hymn to the Peoples 161
Source: Project Gutenberg. Published 1920. Author died 1963. Public domain in the United States. Share this book: WhatsApp
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